The Confessions of Max Tivoli A Novel

"We are each the love of someone's life." So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other. Born with the physical appearance of an elderly man, Max grows older mentally like any child, but his body appears to age backwards, growing younger every year. And yet, his physical curse proves to be a blessing, allowing him to try to win the heart of the same woman three times as at each successive encounter she fails to recognize him, taking him for a stranger, so giving Max another chance at love. Set against the historical backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century, The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a beautiful and daring feat of the imagination, questioning the very nature of love, time, and what it means to be human.

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of the story collection How It Was for Me (Picador) and most recently a novel, The Path of Minor Planets (Picador). He lives in San Francisco.

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"Enchanting"--John Updike, The New Yorker
"Devastating, heartbreaking...an astonishment."--Esquire
"****"--People
"Quietly dazzling...keenly affecting."--The New York Times Book Review
"This year's break-out novel."--Entertainment Weekly
"A devastating new writer"-Michael Cunningham
"A fable of surpassing gravity and beauty."--San Francisco Chronicle
"One of the most talented writers around."--Michael Chabon
"Elegant and graceful."--Miami Herald
"Brilliantly conceived."--Los Angeles Times
"A breath-taking love story...a profound meditation on life."--Salon.com
"A writer of great daring and originality."--Peter Carey
"It leaves its readers ...both younger and wiser."--Washington Post
"What's most impressive about Greer's work is the emotional intensity...and the deep beauty of his prose"--The Atlanta Journal Constitution
"This is the kind of book that makes you laugh out loud, write notes in the margins and shed tears onto its pages."--Neil LaBute
"Surprisingly and genuinely affecting."--Library Journal
"Strikingly original and beautifully told."--Bookpage
"Weird and wonderful...[a] deft new modern master."--Elle.com
"[It] strums the heartstrings again and again...positively captivating."--Booklist
"Mesmerizing and heartbreaking."--Publishers Weekly
"The delights are many....old-fashioned narrative fun in a literary hall of mirrors."
--Kirkus Review
"A mythic, Proustian romance...a brilliant story."--The Times (London)